Do You Love the Game or Just Your Team

By Adam Turteltaub

I’m a baseball fan. I love to watch games, see new stadiums and root for the Dodgers.

There are less and less baseball fans out there these days. People think other sports are sexier, and I can live with that. What I find hard to live with is that even at a baseball game there are less fans of baseball and more fans of just their team.

What I mean by that is that no matter where I watch a game, there are more and more people who seem interested in only cheering for their team and yelling obscenities at the opponent. They don’t appreciate good pitching, or a well-turned double play by the opponent. They are only there to (drunkenly, too often) root for their team.

Why is this relevant? Because a lot of compliance problems begin, I fear, with employees who are fans of their team, and not the game. They are more concerned with winning and cheering on their people, than appreciating business done right.

They lose track of the fact that businesses are created for a purpose, usually beyond just to make money. Few companies are born or succeed with the idea of creating just another widget. [bctt tweet=”The goal is to create a widget that provides value to the market, not just to the bottom line. “]

This loss of perspective is dangerous, because it provokes a win at all cost mentality, and an indifference to the rules of the game and how to play it well.

I don’t know what the cure for this is. It’s bigger than compliance programs. It seems every sporting arena these days – baseball, football, hockey, soccer, you name it – is filled with fans of just their own team. But if we can get people to root for the company to play well, and not just score at the expense of others, we may help them understand that playing well is far better for their team.